4 ms·

I can't wait till there are physical books that will let you: 1. Find words almost straight away. 2. Change the font and its size. 3. Change the line spacing

by HKH2 2y ago

I can't wait till there are physical books that will let you: 1. Find words almost straight away. 2. Change the font and its size. 3. Change the line spacing. 4. Scroll and use the top of the screen to keep track of where you are so you don't skip lines. 5. Have hyperlinks to footnotes. (Edit: I meant endnotes.) 6. Have bookmarks with labels that don't affect the reading experience. 7. Jump to chapters immediately. 8. Hold it the same way, no matter where you are in the book. 9. Read it discretely.

ajmurmann 2y ago
10. Don't need external light 11. Always only take up the space of a very thin book no matter how many you bring I have a lot of sentimental feelings for my physical books, but they are just so inconvenient. Sadly, for this reason I only buy reference books in print. I even repurchase books I was gifted physically, as ebooks to actually read them.
WillAdams 2y ago
By way of contrast, I want an e-reader which: - will allow organizing the books _exactly_ was I want (why isn't by percentage read an option, or chronological by date of publication, or timeframe covered) - allow flipping through pages of a text quickly with a re-draw/re-fresh rate which actually allows reading individual words as I turn pages quickly searching for a specific passage - allow for a high-quality, detailed reproduction of an image, either in incredibly high resolution with subtle details (like to a printing of a b/w engraving with two black plates) or in full colour (and for extended colour range there was Hexachrome which I wish had become more popular) - have the same contrast as a piece of paper w/ bright white paper under UV light, or even a Kelmscott Press edition (which has the blackest ink I've ever seen) - allow _beautiful_ typesetting and will not allow widows and orphans and stacks to occur (in a re-flowable format --- no fair claiming PDFs are ebooks when folks sneer at them as not being ebooks, or presenting a collection of pixel images in a wrapper as an ebook) Bonus points if the text is actually correct --- I've never read an ebook in which I did not report at least one typo (and that includes _Dune_ ("pogrom" was rendered as "program" and there was an error in the formatting of a glossary entry in the edition which I re-read) --- that said, the ability to directly report errors is nice, and fai r easier than tracking down the editor of a given volume at a given publisher (which reminds me, I need to check for an updated copy of _The Fall of Arthur_ by J.R.R. Tolkien to see if the typo I reported has been corrected). The world would be a better place if authors would take typos as seriously as Donald E. Knuth does and give out reward checks (I have a physical one for $2.88 for his _Digital Typography_ --- and need to find a typo in a more recent work so as to have an account at the Bank of the Island of San Serriffe).
- falcolas 2y ago
  Being fair, I've never found a paper book without at least one typo either. Hell, I accidentally bought a paperback on sale that had the last 100 pages replaced with another copy of the previous 100 pages.
  - WillAdams 2y ago
    Printed books, esp. older ones had a lot more constraints (print deadline) and don't have the same ability to update the master copy and push the corrections out --- there isn't an excuse for a book which has been continuously in print since 1965 still having a typo in it decades after it was first released as an ebook. In my experience print editors are far more receptive of being informed of errors than ebook editors --- often an ebook seems not to have had an editor at all, certainly no one proofread the copy of _Space Cadet_ I bought on the Sony ebook store for my Sony PRS-505 --- it was so rife with errors as to be unreadable, and required that I borrow a print edition from a local library so as to be able to send in the corrections.
- HKH2 2y ago
  I agree with your points; ebooks are not perfect. Thank goodness the flaws you've listed can be fixed.
  - WillAdams 2y ago
    Not fixed yet. The typesetting issue (no orphans, widows, or stacks) in particular is quite intractable (Knuth wasn't able to come up with a hyphenation algorithm which detects and prevents stacks, see the 2nd edition of _The LaTeX Companion_).
kayodelycaon 2y ago
It would also be nice to able to buy the next book in a series without going to a store or waiting for it to be delivered.
egypturnash 2y ago
5: hyperlinks to footnotes are the worst, you have a tiny, tiny little target to tap that might be inside the much larger area of space which will turn the page when tapped, and usually they are actually to endnotes rather than footnotes - footnotes are at the bottom of the page they are referred to upon, rather than halfway across the book at the end of the chapter. A real footnote sits at the bottom of the page and is visible the moment you turn the page, alerting you for the tiny little sign pointing to it somewhere in the text. 9: you can steal the dust jacket from a similarly sized book and cover up the fact that you are reading Fannie’s First Gape or whatever else you’re embarrassed about, y’know; hell, you could even rip the cover off entirely if it’s a paperback and you don’t care about the book’s condition.
- HKH2 2y ago
  9. It's not about being embarrassed. I just don't need discussions about the book that I'm reading or even about the fact that I am reading a book at all.

by HKH2 2y ago

ajmurmann 2y ago

10. Don't need external light 11. Always only take up the space of a very thin book no matter how many you bring I have a lot of sentimental feelings for my physical books, but they are just so inconvenient. Sadly, for this reason I only buy reference books in print. I even repurchase books I was gifted physically, as ebooks to actually read them.

WillAdams 2y ago

By way of contrast, I want an e-reader which: - will allow organizing the books _exactly_ was I want (why isn't by percentage read an option, or chronological by date of publication, or timeframe covered) - allow flipping through pages of a text quickly with a re-draw/re-fresh rate which actually allows reading individual words as I turn pages quickly searching for a specific passage - allow for a high-quality, detailed reproduction of an image, either in incredibly high resolution with subtle details (like to a printing of a b/w engraving with two black plates) or in full colour (and for extended colour range there was Hexachrome which I wish had become more popular) - have the same contrast as a piece of paper w/ bright white paper under UV light, or even a Kelmscott Press edition (which has the blackest ink I've ever seen) - allow _beautiful_ typesetting and will not allow widows and orphans and stacks to occur (in a re-flowable format --- no fair claiming PDFs are ebooks when folks sneer at them as not being ebooks, or presenting a collection of pixel images in a wrapper as an ebook) Bonus points if the text is actually correct --- I've never read an ebook in which I did not report at least one typo (and that includes _Dune_ ("pogrom" was rendered as "program" and there was an error in the formatting of a glossary entry in the edition which I re-read) --- that said, the ability to directly report errors is nice, and fai r easier than tracking down the editor of a given volume at a given publisher (which reminds me, I need to check for an updated copy of _The Fall of Arthur_ by J.R.R. Tolkien to see if the typo I reported has been corrected). The world would be a better place if authors would take typos as seriously as Donald E. Knuth does and give out reward checks (I have a physical one for $2.88 for his _Digital Typography_ --- and need to find a typo in a more recent work so as to have an account at the Bank of the Island of San Serriffe).

falcolas 2y ago
Being fair, I've never found a paper book without at least one typo either. Hell, I accidentally bought a paperback on sale that had the last 100 pages replaced with another copy of the previous 100 pages.
- WillAdams 2y ago
  Printed books, esp. older ones had a lot more constraints (print deadline) and don't have the same ability to update the master copy and push the corrections out --- there isn't an excuse for a book which has been continuously in print since 1965 still having a typo in it decades after it was first released as an ebook. In my experience print editors are far more receptive of being informed of errors than ebook editors --- often an ebook seems not to have had an editor at all, certainly no one proofread the copy of _Space Cadet_ I bought on the Sony ebook store for my Sony PRS-505 --- it was so rife with errors as to be unreadable, and required that I borrow a print edition from a local library so as to be able to send in the corrections.
HKH2 2y ago
I agree with your points; ebooks are not perfect. Thank goodness the flaws you've listed can be fixed.
- WillAdams 2y ago
  Not fixed yet. The typesetting issue (no orphans, widows, or stacks) in particular is quite intractable (Knuth wasn't able to come up with a hyphenation algorithm which detects and prevents stacks, see the 2nd edition of _The LaTeX Companion_).

kayodelycaon 2y ago

It would also be nice to able to buy the next book in a series without going to a store or waiting for it to be delivered.

egypturnash 2y ago

5: hyperlinks to footnotes are the worst, you have a tiny, tiny little target to tap that might be inside the much larger area of space which will turn the page when tapped, and usually they are actually to endnotes rather than footnotes - footnotes are at the bottom of the page they are referred to upon, rather than halfway across the book at the end of the chapter. A real footnote sits at the bottom of the page and is visible the moment you turn the page, alerting you for the tiny little sign pointing to it somewhere in the text. 9: you can steal the dust jacket from a similarly sized book and cover up the fact that you are reading Fannie’s First Gape or whatever else you’re embarrassed about, y’know; hell, you could even rip the cover off entirely if it’s a paperback and you don’t care about the book’s condition.

HKH2 2y ago
9. It's not about being embarrassed. I just don't need discussions about the book that I'm reading or even about the fact that I am reading a book at all.